The nineteenth century, according to C. Willett Cunnington, was a period when the cult of modesty was a tactical maneuver camouflaged as a virtue. It was also a period when euphemisms were used for such terms as -naked, - -breast, - and -leg, - and when underclothing was vaguely spoken of as -lingerie.- Cunnington, an early twentieth-century authority on fashion, argues that the Victorian matron was governed as much by current popular style as she was by instinct and custom. In a light, amusing, and highly readable account, he not only describes what Englishwomen wore in the nineteenth...
The nineteenth century, according to C. Willett Cunnington, was a period when the cult of modesty was a tactical maneuver camouflaged as a virtue. It ...
Corsets in one form or another have existed since biblical times. By the 19th century, they were so firmly entrenched in feminine life that it seemed impossible to live without them. These foundation garments altered more than the figure -- their restrictions affected the wearer's behavior as well as impressions of her character. Until they were supplanted by diet and exercise, corsets offered the customary means of obtaining the currently popular shape: the rigidly flat torso and raised bosom of the seventeenth century; the eighteenth century's shoulders-back, flat-stomached, high-busted...
Corsets in one form or another have existed since biblical times. By the 19th century, they were so firmly entrenched in feminine life that it seemed ...
